Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
A scholar of American Christianity presents a seventy-five-year history of evangelicalism that identifies the forces that have turned Donald Trump into a hero of the Religious Right. How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016. And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate’s staunchest supporters. more
356 pages, Hardcover
First published Liveright Publishing Corporation
4.31
Rating
24802
Ratings
4289
Reviews
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
5 books 477 followers
Born and raised in Iowa with brief sojourns in Tallahassee, FL, and Ostfriesland, Germany. PhD from the University of Notre Dame, and now I reside in Grand Rapids, MI. I have 3 kids, 2 chickens, and a dog, and I write on gender, religion, and politics.Community reviews
I have no idea how to translate what I just learned into a “star” rating. Was her research five star. I feel pretty confident saying it is. Was the content unbearable at times, so cringey that I wanted to quit. For sure. more
Usually I will stay away from books on religion. Everyone’s passions overtake their judgment, facts are few, fleeting and ignored, and no minds are changed in the reading. But the pop culture intersection of American politics and American evangelicalism proved tempting, and thankfully, most worthwhile. For a title like Jesus and John Wayne, I broke my rule. “To be an evangelical, according to the National Association of Evangelicals, is to uphold the Bible as one’s ultimate authority, to confess the centrality of Christ’s atonement, to believe in a born-again conversion experience, and to actively work to spread this good news and reform society accordingly. more
cohesively maps out the rise of the American evangelical movement, homing in on how its leaders gained and wielded political influence. the book is great and provocatively argues that evangelicals’ early support of Trump wasn’t transactional but predictable and in line with the path of the entire movement, which has always supported coarse and oppressive white male leaders with roots in the entertainment industry. more
As an Evangelical who voted for Trump, I have to say that this book missed it's mark. DuMez does not understand how we think or why we overwhelmingly supported Trump and the Republican Party in 2016. If you are not an Evangelical and you are genuinely curious about why we supported Trump, this is not the book you are looking for. DuMez clearly did a lot of historical research, but she has such a different worldview then Evangelicals so when she tries to interpret events, movements, etc. she almost always lands in the wrong place. more
Christian Nihilism===The ugly side. https://www. vice. com/en/article/93yvm. ===========The real reason the Christian Right decided to oppose abortion. more
I was raised in a conservative Evangelical household. So was my wife, and so were most of my friends of my generation. Part of this identity was theological: the inerrancy of the Bible, which for most of us entailed young-earth creationism, was the critical plank. But a politics defined by opposition to abortion and homosexuality was at least equally important for our parents’ generation. I first realized this when, without any real shifts in my theology, I began to slide toward full libertarianism. more
“Christian nationalism—the belief that America is God’s chosen nation and must be defended as such—serves as a powerful predictor of intolerance toward immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians. It is linked to opposition to gay rights and gun control, to support for harsher punishments for criminals, to justifications for the use of excessive force against black Americans in law enforcement situations, and to traditionalist gender ideology. ” Kristin Kobes Du MezKristin Kobes Du Mez holds a Ph. D. from the University of Notre Dame and teaches history and gender studies at Calvin University. more
Did you know that white evangelicals are bad, Bad, BAD. Well, you should know that, and K. K. Du Mez really needs you to know that. Du Mez, who grew up in the CRC and went to Dordt, supplies what she thinks is a neat genealogical account of 20/21c events that led to evangelicals' voting for a jackass. more
Well, I have mixed feelings about this book. There was much that I really enjoyed. It is first of all just a really good, easy read. Du Mez introduces a whole host of major "evangelical" and conservative figures who have exerted considerable influence on the American church and American politics in the past 75 years. She quite convincingly demonstrates American "evangelicals" unhealthy obsession with a particular kind of militaristic, masculine leadership and the many unhappy consequences that have followed. more
This is a really cohesively argued piece of historical non-fiction that persuasively traces the connections between the muscular Christianity that arose in the 1800s to early 1900s American fundamentalism to the neoevangelicals of the 1950s through today. I am used to seeing these kinds of histories drop off around the first Reagan election, so I was really interested to see the more detailed history outlined of the movement between 1980 & 2020. I also really enjoyed seeing the connections to militarism with Billy Graham all the way in the 1950s, as well as the connections between modern evangelicalism and the Vietnam War. All in all, I would definitely recommend this to anyone trying to understand American evangelical subculture of the late 20th & early 21st century. more
Video discussion: https://youtu. be/IFHShWKCkmgI have a lot to say about this one, and I will in a forthcoming video. But suffice to say, any former, deconstructing, or moderate American evangelical should really read this book. It is a fantastic piece of non-fiction, tracing the history of the American Evangelical movement from its roots in the early 1900's through the Trump years. It is well argued and I was riveted. more
Kristen Kobes Du Mez's history of the legacy of evangelicalism's culture of toxic patriarchy must be reckoned with. The stories Du Mez shares cannot be shrugged off. My skin crawled as I read the history of men like Bill Gothard, Doug Wilson, and Mark Driscoll. I ached as I read about CJ Mahaney's hurtful mishandling of sexual abuse allegations. I cringed as I read Billy Graham's early words around the role of the wife. more
The apparent contrasting dissimilar spirits contained in the book's title, Jesus (turn the other cheek) versus John Wayne (militant white masculinity), illustrate the stretch between the Christian ideal and American evangelicals today. This book also suggests that this striving toward visions of militantly muscular Christianity to be the motivation for evangelicals to participate in the fracture of the nation via their support of Donald Trump. The degree to which this emphasis on masculinity by white evangelicalism is more cultural than spiritual is the fact that many African American Christians have identical theological beliefs to those subscribed to by white evangelicals, yet the two groups end up in completely different camps when it comes to politics and support of Trump. This dichotomy suggests racism to be involved. ( Link to the "evangelical distinctives,")The goal of this book as described in its Introduction is to explain why white Americans who self identify as evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. more
This book is a history of white American evangelicalism and its highly readable while managing to pack in a lot of history. Its also highly depressing and frustrating. I feel I grew up in the best of white American evangelicalism but as I look around, I fear the worst has won out in the end. I grew up in American evangelicalism, though I was not conscious of that until I left home for college. My church growing up was certainly evangelical, but most of the focus from the pulpit was on living as a follower of Jesus. more
In undergrad a girl bought me a copy of 'Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul' by John Eldredge. It was a sweet gesture but never was there a book I wanted to violently toss across the room more. ‘Wild at Heart’ was my baptism into a particularly prevalent form of Christian masculinity that I have never been able to relate to - that I find off putting and at odds with what the Bible says (and DOESN'T SAY) about masculinity. I relished every opportunity I had to point out the problematic teachings, especially around gender, of Eldredge, Mark Driscoll, and complementarianism. 'Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation' has attracted a remarkable amount of attention, striking a chord with Christian men disillusioned with militant masculinity and women who have had their own tragic experiences with the manipulation, exploitation, and abuse recounted by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. more
This was an unsettling read. It stirred me up to read the particulars behind the philosophy of millions of evangelicals. Nothing was particularly new or eye-opening for me, but to read the numerous examples and details tended to rile me up. There is a great deal of information here that evangelicals should know about their own history and philosophies and practices, especially as it relates to contributing to today’s political divide. The frustration is that those who need to read this probably won’t. more
There’s some good conclusions in here but they’re deeply marred by the ridiculous slant so much of this book takes. Smarmy is not a strong enough word to describe this author’s perspective. Also, if I have to read the word “patriarchy” one more time. What the author doesn’t understand is that there’s this thing called “The Bible” that Christians adhere to and submit to. Also - the book is well written but the historiography is weak. more
UPDATE:As I was writing this review, Donald Trump was indicted for a third time. ******Du Mez decided to write this book after the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape just four weeks before the 2016 election, the tape in which Trump boasted in lewd terms about “seducing and assaulting women. " A disclosure such as this would likely have torpedoed any other presidential campaign. In spite of the tape, however, white evangelicals cast 81% of their votes for him. In her introduction, Du Mez poses these questions that she formulated after Trump won the election: How could 'family values' conservatives support a man who flouted every value they held dear. more
This book traces an interesting (albeit, IMO misguided and overstated) thread of “toxic masculinity” in evangelicalism over the last century. But I have a hunch that Du Mez solved the mystery before the book was written and picked the clues up that fit her narrative along the way. Granted, there’s a whole lot of cringe-worthy quotes that I wish self-professed evangelicals didn’t say. This book is a hit list of who’s who from new Calvinism, including a good number of now-fallen pastors, and, again, much of what many of them have said and done is nasty. But even when it’s not a complementarian, Calvinist pastor (Du Mez’s primary targets), Du Mez finds a way to connect their issues to toxic masculinity, as is the case with Bill Hybels. more
82% of white evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. For ease of use, I’m just going to refer to them as Christian Supremist. Their epistemic bubble reinforces all of their hates, fears, doubts and uncertainties. As the author mentioned in the very beginning of this book Trump campaigned by saying anyone who disagreed with him was weak, corrupt and not worthy of consideration. That is in synch with how they see the world and that lets them hate the same people and long for the good old days when women knew their place, men reigned supreme, foreigners stayed in their own country, Muslims are to be feared, and ‘men were men, and women were glad for it’. more
I am white and an evangelical. I felt like I needed to read this book because until recently I didn’t know that being a “white” evangelical was even a thing. If you know me and read this book and think this is who I am, we need to have a conversation. This book is a joke. This book is dangerous. more
This is a fantastic book about masculinity and Christianity. As someone who grew up idolizing John Wayne in reruns of his films in the 1980s, this book resonated with me from the title to the last word. For many men who struggle to reconcile America's "rugged individualism" with the gentle servant heart of Jesus, this book connects a lot of dots. There are so many good sections of the book that I could highlight, but for me understanding the common thread of masculinity in evangelical churches is absolutely key. This was an intentional desire of folks like Mark Driscoll (who features in the book) to "save the family by saving the man. more
This book ought to come with a gift certificate for therapy. For those (like me) who thought that Evangelical support for Donald Trump was a puzzling anomaly, Du Mez demonstrates that it fits squarely in the Evangelical narrative as it has developed over the past 50 years. She guides readers through decades of religious and political leadership to highlight the emergence of a militant, masculine version of Christianity that has captured the imagination of white Evangelicals. As a child, I had a book by Ann Jonas called 'Round Trip. ' It was a picture book that you read from start to finish, then flipped over and read upside down back to the beginning. more
An historical account of the evangelical masculinity movement in the US that throws boringly predictable egalitarian jabs and gives frustratingly deceptive presentations of patriarchal views. Her conclusion is especially maddening with unserious comments about evangelical support for Trump’s wall, such as: “given that the Bible is filled with commands to welcome the stranger and care for the foreigner these attitudes might seem puzzling. ” This book, for whatever historical insights it might offer (very few), is surprisingly sloppy and predictably preachy. A real snore. 1/5 stars. more
This book belongs to a long tradition of religious bigotry and functions much the same way Julius Streicher's "The Poisonous Mushroom" functioned in Germany to spread malicious and hateful misrepresentations of a people the author does not like but does not care to understand. The reader will find it filled with undocumented anecdotes which are used to justify empty caricatures of an entire people group. Think I'm wrong. As yourself - what is her definition of "evangelical" and would an evangelical institution of any age affirm that definition (if you find it). Perhaps in some forgotten and isolated corner of the fringe of American society one might perchance meet one or two people who match Du Mez's descriptions. more
Not being a terribly "political" person, I haven't paid much attention to elections until the last 12 years. Watching the last four in particular led me to question many things about how and why others vote as they do. When things baffle me, I seek more information. This book offers one perspective on why those categorized as "white evangelicals" vote as they do--what matters to them and how they see our culture. The author explores previous elections and presidents along with more current ones. more
This is brilliant and deeply challenging. For starters, it helped me to better articulate why I have always felt like a foreigner in American Evangelicalism. Having grown up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist circles, I saw much of these attitudes and trends. At the same time, being a part of that movement outside of the United States provided some insulation from the worst elements. In general, I think this is an excellent and necessary book for all evangelicals to read. more
A really odd book in that I think it's valuable and insightful and at the same time, I disliked it quite a bit. The thesis - White Evangelicals enthusiastically supporting Donald Trump is a feature, not a bug, meaning evangelicals have long espoused a macho masculine mentality and Trump is a logical outcome of that. This mentality is typified by a decades long reverence on evangelicals part for the machismo of John Wayne (and the parallels to Trump are almost too convenient - promoting courage while personally avoiding the military, a disregard for family values when it comes to divorce and fidelity, and no real personal faith) . It seems kind of absurd at first but the quotations by evangelicals through the cited in the book become kind of overwhelming - there's something there. And it traces that masculine thread from Wayne to Billy Graham, Bill Bright, purity culture, James Dobson, Promise Keepers, and more through today. more
I can’t remember the last time I had such a visceral reaction to a book. I am so angry, but it is a righteous anger. I am angry at how the faith I hold so dear has been twisted and manipulated into the evangelicalism of America. I’m so angry that I was gaslit into believing that people like John Piper, Focus on the Family/James Dobson, and even Billy Graham were good and had the purest of intentions. I’m so angry. more
If you’ve ever looked at the evangelical political landscape and wondered. exactly how did we get here. This is the book for you. It was a difficult and frustrating read. Many of the things mentioned are things I literally lived out in my own life. more